>>PREVIEW
MSTRKRFT
Thursday, July 27
Hifi Club
"Don’t worry – you didn’t say anything wrong," Jesse Keeler, one half of Toronto producers du jour MSTRKRFT, says reassuringly over the phone from a hotel room in Quebec City. I was stammering out an apology after using the phrase "dance music" in reference to the duo's debut album The Looks.
"Dance music is not a poor choice of words. I use it all the time. That 's what I tell people we make – dance. It’s all encompassing. It’s like saying ‘rock.’ I mean, if rock music was judged by its worst, rock would be a very dirty four- letter word."
Point taken. And there's no denying that MSTRKRFT appear to have one guiding principle – if it doesn't make you move, it's probably not worth doing. It's reflective of a shift in music in general over the past few years from the bedroom to the dance floor. And through a neat confluence of events, Keeler, along with his producing partner Al-P, is at the right place at the right time.
As a member of Death From Above 1979 (DFA 1979), Keeler found himself receiving international accolades for the 2004 release You're a Woman, I'm a Machine. The record was produced by Al-P, and its success opened doors for he and Keeler to begin producing other bands. When the full-length remix album dropped, however, it was the producers’ remixing skills that were noticed by music fans. The two clear-cut dance floor favourites were the remix of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" by house legend Alan Braxe and MSTRKRFT’s reworking of "Sexy Results." By this point the duo had begun working on the occasional remix jobs, but suddenly found themselves in big demand, doing high profile remixes for everyone from Montreal electro artist Tiga to Juliette and the Licks followed.
For DFA 1979 fans, Keeler's move into producing seemed a little, well, weird, given the band's aggressive, noisy rock. But, looking at his background, it makes perfect sense.
"In high school, before I discovered punk, I was into rap and then dance," explains Keeler, "and as I got older, I was able to seek things out, go out to clubs, and hear things played out. I DJ'd before DFA 1979, and while we were working with Al-P, I would play him (dance) things I was working on."
Keeler is emblematic of the (re)infiltration of dance beats into the iPods, stereos and consciousness of a generation, and The Looks is a document of this – containing elements of early '90s techno and trance, '80s electro and French house (including obvious touchstones Daft Punk, though this comparison is largely based on the two groups’ affinity for the Vocoder), it neatly and exuberantly rounds up defining features from a variety of the seminal dance genres of the past two decades and mashes them together into a sound that could define 2006. And the fact that an entirely new generation of kids are discovering the joy of shaking it on a sweaty, packed dance floor makes perfect sense to Keeler.
"Dance music is the oldest music – it’s always been here, it’s not going anywhere. It just went on a hiatus in North America for a while, and for that I blame the city of Seattle," he says matter-of-factly. "I could go on about this for a long time, but I think we’re in a period similar to the mid-70s – post-Viet Nam, Cold War. People were sick of hearing about problems around them and suddenly you’ve got disco, and John Denver also, suddenly came to light and it (stopped) being about what was going on right then. And it’s similar now – we all need some escape right now."
"Much like back in the day, all the protests organized couldn’t vote out the government that was there, and people got frustrated and gave up and this has all happened in the past five years. Everyone acts so shocked, like this has never happened before, but this is how things work. Don’t be so surprised."
Keeler's theory holds weight – while eras that have been soundtracked by dance beats are often referred to as periods of time that are defined by individualism and selfishness (think the mid-'80s, or the mid '70s period to which he is referring), often the very fact that dance floors are packed is indicative of the need for a communal experience, one removed from the problems of the world. It's something that Keeler believes in whole-heartedly.
"Maybe people are accepting this more," he says. "Music shouldn’t be the way you try to change the world – I’m not that impressed with those kinds of sentiments in music. You might as well make music you enjoy. We’re trying to make music to play in clubs, for DJs to play (and) for people to dance to, and when we DJ it’s a similar idea. It’s not rocket science. We just want to have a good party!" |
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